[9fans] Update

[9fans] Update

[rob pike]

An update of the 3rd release is now available at
	http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9
This is likely to be the last shipment using the original protocol;
the next release will probably be called the 4th edition and will use
the new version of 9P.

Note:
	If you installed Plan 9 between October 29, 2000 and November 29,
	2000, you need to grab a new /wrap/plan9/971556349/md5sum file before
	installing the update.  The update page has details.

Today's update is substantially larger than previous ones, but there
are substantially more things updated....

There are a number of new things, including:

- Support for Lucent Orinoco (Wavelan) cards (thanks to Francisco
	Ballesteros).
- Support for the Netgear GA620 gigabit Ethernet cards.
- A much faster VNC viewer, vncviewer(1).
- A preliminary kernel for the Compaq iPAQ h3650 and h3630, also known
	as the `bitsy'; look in /sys/src/9/bitsy.  Associated with this are
	a variety of new pieces including a `scribble' library for character
	recognition and some tools; see scribble(2) and bitsyload(1).
- A new compression/decompression library, flate(2).
- A new library for grouped allocation, bin(2), plus a per-process
	allocator for threaded programs, privalloc(2).
- A variety of tweaks to libc including case-insensitive string
	matching and pread and pwrite system calls (read and write with
	the file offset in the call rather than the fd).
- Multiple boot configurations in plan9.ini(8).
- Partial support of X.509 certificates.
- Partial support of PNG images.
- New Acme interfaces for news and wiki.
- Support for rc(1)-style quoted strings in the C library, quote(2).
	This is the harbinger of future things, including:
- A preliminary library of graphic controls (widgets);
	see control(2).

There are plenty of bugs fixed, too.

Kernel and networking fixes include:

- Better timesync algorithms (no longer requiring floating point).
- TCP/IP:
	- No longer loses queued bytes when shutting down a connection.
	- Too aggressive rexmits removed.
	- Reads now return as much data as possible instead of just
	    the next segment's worth.
- ip/dhcpd:
	- copy the contents of the gateway field from BOOTP/DHCP requests to replies
	- deal with requests containing huge leases
	- some protection against systems that don't give up their leases when
	  they run out.
- Graphics:
	- important fixes to alpha blending and allocation of images.
	- better conversion of true color to mapped images (rgb2cmap).
- Libmp + libsec completely replace libcrypt.
	- Also assembly routines for various architectures speed things up.

And of course zillions of other application and library fixes and
enhancements.

-rob

[9fans] update

[Skip Tavakkolian]

for those who have joined rangboom, i've added everyone to my
personal group (skip) and to (9fans) group. i've shared out a collection
of pictures i've taken with the first group.

on (9fans) i've shared out my windows drawterm build directory.
there's an experimental device called /dev/showfile (devcons.c,
win32.c) to send URLs directly to windows (to open in the browser).
there's already a rule to plumb URLs to winstart; here's my version:

cpu% cat /rc/bin/winstart
#!/bin/rc

echo $* > /mnt/term/dev/showfile

[9fans] update

[jmk]

There are new top level directories /amd64 and /sparc64.
There's not much there yet, only some includes to enable
libmach to compile with the support for those 2 architectures
(there are updates to libmach too). There may be something
I missed in making the updates so let me know if there's
something amiss.

Action brought to you by your friendly prejudiced dickhead.

[9fans] Update

[rob pike]

I've posted a tiny new wrap file, dated 03270526, that incorporates presotto's
speedup to /proc, a new #p/nnn/args file that holds a process's arguments,
a change to ps so the -a flag will report those arguments, and an unrelated
update of the control library.

-rob

[9fans] update

[presotto]

We stuck an partial wrap update on the update page.  It has a pointer
to a file listing all the changes, mostly bug fixes.  The biggest
addition is the journaling flash file system for the bitsy.  I also
made the bitsy startup less 1127 specific.

We didn't stick in any binaries to you'll have to do compiles yourself.

Cheers.

Re: [9fans] Update

[rob pike]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 37 bytes --]

It was incorrect.  Weird.

-rob


[-- Attachment #2: Type: message/rfc822, Size: 1475 bytes --]

From: Richard Miller <miller@hamnavoe.demon.co.uk>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] Update
Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2000 09:34:25 0000
Message-ID: <E13utXI-000LOS-0A@finch-post-10.mail.demon.net>

Are you sure the md5sum prefix quoted on the website for the
11 Nov update is correct?

Re: [9fans] Update

[Boyd Roberts]

From: Richard Miller <miller@hamnavoe.demon.co.uk>


> Are you sure the md5sum prefix quoted on the website for the
> 11 Nov update is correct?

it's _still_ a prefix!?!  i believe i suggested to put the
whole checksum on the page -- that's what it's for.

Re: [9fans] Update

[Richard Miller]

Are you sure the md5sum prefix quoted on the website for the
11 Nov update is correct?

[9fans] Update

[rob pike]

I have posted a new update to the Plan 9 web site
	http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9
Grab it by the usual procedure.

The new file is called 10141111.9gz and includes fixes to heinous bugs in
acme, rio, and astro.  OK, the astro one may not be as critical but I felt foolish
standing in the waiting for an occultation that didn't happen.

-rob

Re: [9fans] Update

[Scott Schwartz]

Rob writes:
| 12)	Only 'eve' processes can become none.  This is perhaps he
| 	most dangerous change.  We are running with it but we don't
| 	know if this will affect others.

Would it be useful to distinguish between "peon" (the opposite of root)
and "unknown" (the absense of authentication)?

| 1)	Many bugs fixed in Acme and Rio.

A while back we exchanged some patches to sam; should I update the unix
version to match whatever is shipped with Plan 9 now?

[9fans] Update

[rob pike]

I've just installed a new update for Plan 9 on http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9.
You can install the full download, or do an incremental update from the June 17
distribution.

There are many changes, including:

A. The kernel:

1)	Ether2114x will support PNIC (and possibly PNIC2) chips
2)	Sdmylex will now support Adaptec AHA-154x ISA cards via
		scsiX=type=aha1542 port=NNN
	in plan9.ini.
3)	Bounce-buffer bug in fileserver aha154x driver fixed.
4)	Virge/dx vga card cursor problem fixed.
5)	Different pc fileserver versions made as much alike as possible.
6)	Cursor problem on some matrox millennuim cards fixed.
7)	Some tweaking of the ata drive initialisation for laptops which
	don't respond quickly.
8)	Ownership and permissions on sd ctl and raw files can be changed
9)	More versions of the trident cyber938x vga chip handled and now
	also handles some dstn displays as well as tft.
10)	A new loopback network device.
11)	The cpu kernel no longer requires that the auth domain,
	auth id, and password be non-null.  It used to be a fatal
	mistake.
12)	Only 'eve' processes can become none.  This is perhaps he
	most dangerous change.  We are running with it but we don't
	know if this will affect others.

B. Booting:

1)	Sources for building one's own standalone boot floppies
	are in /sys/lib/pcdist; see /sys/lib/pcdist/README for more.
2)	New auth= and fs= entries in plan9.ini

C. Networking:

1)	Fixes to dhcpd to make it resilient to misbehavior.
2)	Lots of changes to ppp, including work on the compression protocol.
3)	Fatal bug fixed in ping.
4)	Format changes to stat files in the IP stack to make them more
	understandable.

D. Graphics:

1)	Bugs fixed in construction and use of alpha-blended images.

E. Applications

1)	Many bugs fixed in Acme and Rio.
2)	Scat(7) now plots proper stereographic projections and is
	connected to astro(7) to plot planetary positions.
3)	Astro(7) now knows about the outer planets.

F. New applications:

1)	Vncviewer: connect to desktops on other machines
		running other operating systems.
2)	Bzip2: a plan 9 port of the common bzip2 compression utility.
	The installation disk now uses bzip2 for compressing
	the root file system.

G. Miscellany:

1)	The authentication server now supports vnc authentication,
	but we don't use it yet.
2)	The pop3 server, still to be rewritten, now allows logins
	as "you/subdir" to read /mail/box/you/subdir/mbox.
3)	Change to 386 libmp to speed up multiplication.

I'm certain that this list misses lots of stuff.

-rob

[9fans] Update

[rob pike]

We've just placed a new package and update on
	http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9
This is the last one for a while, because we're
heading off to Usenix and won't be around to tend.
Also it's time to start shifting back into our
regularly scheduled programming.

I urge you to pick up this package, labeled June 17,
or update your old package.  The update package on
the site will update your existing installation
regardless of how many prior updates you have
installed.

This update includes a large improvement to the wrap
software that will make it easier to track and maintain
updates in the future.  Russ will post a separate
explanation of that.

We're well over 2000 successful downloads and still
counting.  Thanks for all your help, encouragement,
enthusiasm, and bug-finding.

See you in San Diego.

-rob